It is manifest that the first fostering of the religious spark is derived from the phenomena of the sensible world. The attention of man and the sense of his weakness is early awakened - yet at first, more by such phenomena as interrupt the common course of nature, and in particular by the experience of terrifying or destroying powers. He searches for the causes of such phenomena, and his imagination, outstripping his later-maturing understanding, ascribes them to the arbitrary activity of more powerful beings. Fear, so we are taught by most kinds of di vine worship which are yet in a rude state, and even by a vari ety of those that have attained a high degree of perfection, feai has at first agitated the soul of man and produced his religious disposition, which, progressing on the way once opened, was soon directed also to the beneficent powers of nature, and to these with love and gratitude, as to the threatening with terror and timid prayer; but at last combining with these awful impressions that which echoes to them softly and sacredly from the innermost recesses of the heart, discerned in those unknown powers the moral rulers, as well as the sovereigns of nature, and upon their mysterious potency built the bold hope of immortality.

This adoration of objects, powers, and appearances of nature (it is called by the general appellation feticium, which, however, does not designate it definitely enough) is discernible in all ancient religions as the basis, and often still later, in their more refined state as the predominant form; but the objects themselves must vary according to the diversity of country and climate, of wants and customs. The storm and the thunder; the power of water and fire, in general the elements and meteors, or the fostering soil, the river that sometimes fertilizes by inundation, and sometimes produces desolation; in the smaller circle, even a running fountain, or a tree which afforded a hospitable shade or delightful fruits; and even the inferior plants; friendly and hostile animals and inanimate objects, but more than all others the sun, the source of light, fertility, and life; the moon. whose gentle majesty speaks to all hearts, and all the high luminaries of the heavens.

This veneration of the celestial bodies may be considered as the most elevated form of the pagan religion, because it is nobler in itself than the common Feticism, and raises the soul much higher; and also because it has become mediately by the investigations of astronomy, which it occasioned, or with which it was connected, the source of far more ingenious systems, and has chiefly determined the dogmas and usages of nations, which are of historical importance.

For after a commencement was made - which was probably first done in Egypt - in investigating the courses of the celestial bodies according to the rules of art, and in seeking for a certain measure of the year and the seasons in the changing constellations, it was necessary to distinguish the various stars and groups of stars, especially those through which the apparent course of the sun and the planets passed, by particular names and fancied images, which were derived in the most natural manner from the affairs of agriculture, the phenomena of the seasons, or other terrestrial objects, that might be connected by an easy association of ideas with the constellations; according to their time or region. Figurative expressions were also selected to represent the various appearances of the heavens, as the varying remoteness and proximity of the stars among themselves and towards the sun, such as, union and separation, love and hatred, dominion and subjection, etc. By the frequent use of such expressions, their original signification, which was merely figurative, was almost inevitably forgotten, and the sign was exchanged for what was designated the earthly for the celestial.

Then those figurative expressions, taken mostly from human qualities and relations, occasioned, as was indeed already done in the common Feticism, the application of ideas which represent the active and passive state of man to the gods, and caused a succession of symbolical positions to be regarded as a series of actual events, and the histories of the gods to be formed like those of men, and by this means a third class of religious systems was created.

This is the deification of departed men. For when once the gods were brought down to men, and considered subject to human inclinations, infirmities, and destinies, when they were ha-bitually imagined to be men who had formerly been upon earth; nothing was more natural than that real men also, who had distinguished themselves, perhaps by wisdom and virtue, by power and beneficence, and consequently elevated themselves above common nature, were regarded as gods or children of gods, and after their death translated to heaven, from voluntary gratitude, servile flattery, or by the mandate of rulers.

The number of deified men, however (the Grecian, and later the Roman religion excepted), has never been very great. The sound understanding of man rose against this apotheosis, and it could by no means enter into those systems of religion which were based upon philosophy and speculation.

The worship of images, or idolatry, in the stricter sense, prevailed more generally. We find this worship of idols associated as well with Feticism as with the veneration of deified men, here and there almost alone predominant, and even introduced into those religions which rest upon an intellectual foundation.

If we except, however, those natural bodies, or rude products of art (as serpents, stones, and hewn pieces of wood, etc.), which are venerated by the most simple nations as fetischs, and indeed merely as religious objects rather than divine - perhaps as talis-mans, amulets, etc. - we find that idols, according to the principles of a prevailing national religion, were nowhere actually venerated as gods, but only as images of the deity. A distinguished man has justly remarked, that the name idolater is one introduced only by those who enjoy a purer religion, but an unjust stigma upon the heathen nations, and that never one of them would have acknowledged the validity of such an appellation in that full sense of the word. The proper dogmas - which e.g. admitted only one Jupiter, who was enthironed in Olympus - were manifestly contradictory to the divine veneration of the thousand statues of his name which adorned so many temples.

And, accordingly, it is evident that the idols were not gods, but were designed only as representations of the deity. Wise and deserving men also venerated these images, since a sacred meaning and a sacred object rested upon them. Soon the devotion of the multitude felt inclined to confide to them higher and miraculous powers; the priests favored this belief, because it brought authority and wealth to them - the guardians of the images - and by a natural increase of devotion, and an artfully enhanced illusion - the conversion of the sign into that which was designated, of the image into the deity, was gradually introduced among the low populace, as well as that which was found in all classes, upon which the philosopher will forbear to pro-nounce a too severe or partial sentence of condemnation.